Feed aggregator

Tackling climate change involves changes in behaviour that would significantly improve people's general health — and save money. Nick Wilson, Professor of Public Health, University of Otago Caroline Shaw, Associate Professor in Public Health, University of Otago Jude Ball, Research Fellow in Public Health, University of Otago Michael Baker, Professor of Public Health, University of Otago Simon Hales, University of Otago Tim Chambers, Senior Research Fellow in the Health Environment & Infection Research Unit (HEIRU), University of Otago Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

US President Joe Biden's (D) administration will urge nations to set more ambitious climate pledges during its spring climate summit, while the US will lay out its own revised nationally-determined contribution (NDC), Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said at CERAWeek by IHS Markit on Tuesday.

Call comes at event hosted by UK government, which is under pressure over planned coalmine in Cumbria

All planned coal projects around the world must be cancelled to end the “deadly addiction” to the most polluting fossil fuel, the UN secretary-general António Guterres said on Tuesday.

Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to tackle the climate crisis, he said. Guterres’s call came at the opening of a summit of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a group of governments and businesses committed to ending coal burning for power.

Continue reading...

A private sector voluntary carbon market (VCM) taskforce on Tuesday moved into the second phase of its development with three working groups and a ten-member advisory board to provide input on increasing the quality of voluntary emission reductions (VERs) and develop standard contracts and governance principles.

US biofuel credit (RIN) values under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) surged on Tuesday to threaten records not seen since the last decade on continued strength in the bean oil-heating oil spread, though some market participants were confounded by the new heights.

Parts of handover had been rushed in waning days of Trump to give Resolution Copper control over Arizona’s Oak Flat region

The Biden administration has put the brakes on a controversial land exchange that would have given a sacred Native American site to a multinational mining company by 11 March.

Parts of the handover had been rushed to completion in the waning days of the Trump administration, in an effort to give Resolution Copper control over Arizona’s Oak Flat region before or soon after Trump left office. Oak Flat sits atop one of the largest untapped copper deposits in the world, estimated to be worth more than $1bn.

Continue reading...

Study finds five in 100,000 Australians taken to hospital for bee and wasp stings, twice the rate for spiders and snakes

Australia is home to the 11 most venomous snakes in the world, the deadliest spider in the world, and some of the most venomous marine life. And yet according to a study released on Wednesday, Australians are twice as likely end up in hospital because of a bee or wasp sting than an encounter with any other venomous creature.

The study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare examined hospital records from 2017-2018 for reports of people being admitted to hospital – not just treated in the emergency department – after contact with a venomous creature.

Continue reading...

The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation into Germany’s €4.35 billion scheme to compensate the early closures of lignite-fired power plants, to review if the programme complies with the bloc’s state aid rules, the EU’s executive announced Tuesday.

The UN has registered a Programme of Activities (PoA) under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), with the initiative's two Singapore-based proponents aiming to generate carbon credits across the entire South East Asian region.

Green shoots and spring buds tell us that life goes on, despite the Covid crisis, and that we will know joy again

I’ve been trying to think of songs about spring, but the ones that have come to mind – Nina’s Simone’s I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes), Billie Holiday’s Some Other Spring – are mournful. Perhaps it’s a reflection of my state of mind. January and February were abject, with upwards of 1,000 deaths a day and people hibernating with their sorrow. This absence of a collective grieving process has felt especially British: emotionally stifled, and cut off from one another, we’ve all been like icebergs, stranded at sea.

But there are signs of hope: my sweet peas are germinating. All over the garden, bulbs that I thought had been snaffled by the resident squirrel – who I once caught swinging upside down from the bird feeder – are shooting green arms towards the sky. And the sun actually came out, reminding me of a much happier spring song, the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun (“Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter, little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here”). It always makes me think of my dad, who sings it in the shower – his other standard is Jerusalem, a funny choice for a Welshman – and whose version of it deviates so wildly from the original that when I first heard it as George Harrison intended I failed to recognise it as the same piece of music. Soon, I hope to hear him cheerfully murder it again.

Continue reading...

Interrupted by week-long Lunar New Year celebrations, China’s pilot carbon markets saw a drop in activity in February as traders got busy tracking down potential sources of offset supply for use in the national emissions trading scheme.

How the priceless skull of an ancient ancestor was brought to the UK from South Africa for study.

A strong China-led rebound from last year’s coronavirus restrictions pushed global energy-related CO2 emissions above historical levels towards the end of 2020, International Energy Agency (IEA) data showed Tuesday.

International Energy Agency data shows steady climb over second half of 2020

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

The world has only a few months to prevent the energy industry’s carbon emissions from surpassing pre-pandemic levels this year as economies begin to rebound from Covid-19 restrictions, according to the International Energy Agency.

New figures from the global energy watchdog found that fossil fuel emissions climbed steadily over the second half of the year as major economies began to recover. By December 2020, carbon emissions were 2% higher than in the same month the year before.

Continue reading...

Discovery off New Zealand includes kitefin shark, which at up to 180cm is now biggest-known luminous vertebrate

Scientists studying sharks off New Zealand have discovered that three deep-sea species glow in the dark – including one that is now the largest-known luminous vertebrate.

Bioluminescence – the production of visible light through a chemical reaction by living organisms – is a widespread phenomenon among marine life but this is the first time it has been documented and analysed in the kitefin shark, the blackbelly lanternshark, and the southern lanternshark.

Continue reading...

The Minister for the Environment, the Hon Sussan Ley, amended the list of threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 by adding 14 species to the list, retaining 1 species within the list and transferring 5 species within the list.

As energy markets the world over grapple with making the clean energy transition, South Australia proves it can be done.

The post Against the odds, South Australia is a renewable energy powerhouse. How did they do it? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Magnis reports promising results indicating major step towards goal for "extra-fast charging" electric vehicle battery that can charge in just six minutes.

The post Six-minute EV battery one step closer as Magnis reports successful test results appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A new ACT parliamentary inquiry to identify opportunities to position Canberra as a national renewables innovation hub.

The post ACT to investigate how to further grow Canberra’s renewables sector appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Swedish plans to develop and trial a salt-based energy storage system will enlist the electric kiln technology of award-winning Australian company Calix.

The post Salt-based energy storage trial taps “first-class” Australian technology appeared first on RenewEconomy.